Frost-Bomb Ice-Strike Monk makes the game easy (Level 1 thru T12, with full Act 1 video)

I've shared my build with quite a few Monks struggling on the discord, and all of them have appreciated it, so I'm posting it here.

Kurobon's Monk Way of Frozen Shatter - PoE 2 Character Planner

The build is focused around maximizing freeze early, both to freeze/stun bosses, and to utilize easy to access AOE dmg with Herald of Ice explosions.

At level 1, we start a little atypically, by picking up frost-bomb, and then focusing on Frost-Bomb, standard Quarterstaff, Bell, and Staggering Palm. We ignore lightning skills, taking falling thunder off the bar by level ~6, because they don't stack bell charges and access to shock is limited early. This simply destroys all Act 1 content. Just in time for Manor and Act 1 wolf boss, we get Ice Strike and unlock the main core of the build, dumpstering the wolf boss. Frost Bomb stays in the build for Cold Exposure.

I have posted an unedited (unproduced) 3 hour walkthrough of Act 1, with a 30 minute Manor and 3 minute Act 1 Wolf boss kill, so you can see how I handle the build and Act 1. It's SSF-style, no bought gear (though I might have used a few crafting mats in the bank, I don't remember).

There is tons of commentary in it, so if you are struggling with POE2, watching more of it might help you with something you are not understanding. If you feel like you "understand" the game, it's there in case you want to look up something specific I did at a specific place.

POE2 - 3hr 15min Act 1 Playthrough - Freeze Monk - YouTube

POE2 - Late Act 1 & Easy 3 min Count Geonor Kill - Freeze Monk - YouTube

Around Act 3, I start to use Wave-of-Frost to freeze, and Glacial Cascade to shatter frozen enemies, for big AOE at mid-range, for a safe way to blow things up when getting into melee feels dicy.

Somewhere Near the end of Campaign (level 55-60) the build respecs to crit and charged staff, double herald (ice/thunder), back to full melee with ice-strike and flicker-strike, and the damage gets absolutely stupid.

I am currently level 84 doing T12 content, and more gated by waystones than ability to make enemies go boom. Played entire SSF with crafted/looted gear.

Hope it helps... Ask any questions here, or join the official POE2 discord and message me @ "kuroparkcity" (you'll have to join the officil discord to message me)

Loving the build so far, just curious on one thing. You have ice bite on multiple things and I was wondering what you can trade things out for?

Ice bite does migrate around based on level.

In the midgame (40-55) i found it more useful to put ice bite on wave of frost, for the big wave-freeze into glacial explode combo.

Later, (60+) when i have more slots on ice strike and charged staff, i move ice bite (and innervate) to ice strike to get high uptime on them, and other dmg boosts move to charged staff, which is also hitting st the same time.

There realy is lots of flexibility to kove supports around according to preference or situation..

Ill recheck the build to make sure i dont have any conflicts on a skills phase.

I am gonna try it out. However, the planner doesn't have any kind of armors to wear. What am I prioritizing, etc..

The planner doesn't have a full gear spec because the build doesn't need anything specific.

I put in a sample weapon with the stats you want to prioritze on the weapon: a physical based weapon with high average DPS and % elemental damage are the most important, then attack speed. It helps to have added lightning, 55+, because he helps us proc shock and thus herald of thunder. Last priority is +melee levels, which, as it adds additional mana consumption and does not perform as well as % elemental damage or flat lighting increasing shock/herald procs.

As for other items, below level 35 it doesn't really matter. If you have a choice, take Evasion/Energy Shield gear with some resitances, but otherwise just equip whatever you can fit.

Around 45 you will start to get forced into Evasion/ES gear because of stat requirements. At this point you wil be focusing on resists (and a bit of rarity!). It doesn't hurt to get some damage on gloves or a ring, but it's not important. It's more important to find/craft/buy a weapon with at least 120% between physical and elemental bonus damage.

Around level 55, once you have your second ascendancy, you will want to do a full respec to crit, respec your ascendancy to "Sunder my Enemies" and "LEad me through grace", and at this point you will want a chest which as much Evasion and Energy Shield as you can get, because of the spirit conversion. This means you want % EVA/ES and flat EVA/ES as your first and only priority on your chest, because you will need all that spirit for buffs.

t10 tree doesnt look optimal. You could drop 2-3 nodes at the bottom as you double connect tree with stat and eva nodes.
Spending that much points to reach carefull assasin but not even taking Thin ice and heavy frost - best nodes in that region ...
also almost no defensive nodes.

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Spending that much points to reach carefull assasin but not even taking Thin ice and heavy frost - best nodes in that region

I have Thin Ice in my live build, as it's decent for 1 point, but Careful Assasin is the best node in the region and is a *much* bigger relative damage improvement (~60%) than Thin Ice (<<12%).

My build planner is a prioritization planner, and everyone should be prioritizing Careful Assasin and crit nodes long before Thin Ice.

Thin Ice is "50% increased dmg with hits against frozen enemies".... and the way increased damage works it is additive and has diminishing returns, making it give me only about 12% additional damage to frozen targets. Since we're popping entire unfrozen screens with herald of thunder procs, this increase often doesn't even apply, so within total aoe damage done, it's much much less than 12%.

Here is an explanation of the math...

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...almost no defensive nodes...

I agree, it's not very defense focused, as I've just not needed it.

This is softcore, and while I do die, I don't die very much (yet). I tend to manage periods of pushing XP and map tiers, and then falling back down for some crazy high energy breach action.

T12 breeches are currently a huge stretch for my 85 Monk, and I'm working on getting more ES and investing in ES bonuses. Maybe I'll try Infused Flesh. I could also probably use a weapon upgrade, but harder to achieve when playing SSF-style. Mine is amazing rolls but mostly T4 affixes.

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You could drop 2-3 nodes at the bottom as you double connect tree with stat and eva nodes

I think you're referring to how I could drop two attribute nodes near "Manifold Method", because I have another path to the outer circle through the evasion triangle. I agree, nice idea.

This is a leftover from when I had the attack damage nodes in that cluster, including "Serrated Edges", which were dropped during the shift to crit. I updated my own tree just now, and ill update the spec in a bit.

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I'll try to find time tonight to post a video of my Monk @ 85 running maps in T10-T12 and a breech, so you can all see how this plays and what actual gear I'm using.

I am now level 86 and doing T14 maps, and in the process have added a new T12+ survivability focused setup that uses the trifecta of Chaos Innoculation, Eternal Youth, and Acrobatics to make Energy Shield the heavy lifter in defensiveness. (see updated build spec)

I did this because I was dying more than I would like in T11/T12. These changes are inspired by the #1 Hardcore Monk's build, though my flavor is definetly a bit different, especially in the support gem setups, as the damage felt very lackluster when I used his support gem setup with only two ascendancies.

It's probably possible/practical to shift to this T12+ CI setup much earlier, especially if there is a survivability issue.. My new spec does drop 20-30% of top-end single target damage from my previous spec, but in return it's 100-200% more survivable, so that seems worth it.

As a bonus, this updated setup made doing my third-ascendancy Chaos Trial a one-try cakewalk (with some trial affix luck), which really helps because this setup works much better when you can get both "I am the blizzard..." and "I am the thunder..." because this causes your herald of thunder to do cold damage and your herald of ice to do lightning damage. (I found this better than running "I am the thunder" and unbound avatar)

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NOTE: There are some (rare) situations where you might want to unspec Eternal Youth and use Meditate instead. This is because Eternal Youth turns off Energy Shield regeneration (and sends it to life, which we only have 1 of), so the only regen we have is life flasks. Alternatively you can invest into flask charges per second.

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I am still working on a video... I recorded footage blasting some breeches, but some annoying deaths during recording drove me to work on survivability and this is the result, so I'll probably just make some new recordings.

how would be that better ? i literaly hadnt died since t10, currently grinding t15 at 90lv. Even swarmed by enemies cant hit me. (in times that i cant perform any skill, its charm bug ?)
Only thing that is insta death is afterdeath effects, that are not even seen coz of shatter. That penetrates my 70/75% arm/eva 2500hp/1900es@3400es with grim.

drinking flasks sounds kinda bad ... and things like burning ground ...

Hi there, just wondering when the passive tree might be re-populated? It seems that the maxroll passive has been significantly pruned back to starter.